In Dreams
by Vague Apparitions
Summary: After the Disasteroid, Danny's life seems to be perfect, like a dream - except for the mysterious black-outs he's been suffering. He soon finds that the veil between dreaming and reality is very thin, and that he is trapped in a place from which he may never escape.


**Disclaimer:**_ I own nothing._

**Author's Notes:** _I have no idea if this is a oneshot or a new series or a crossover. I just know that I wrote it, and it is fanfiction. Enjoy._

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**"In Dreams"**

In the days after the Disasteroid, Danny's life seemed to be a balance between chaos and perfection. It was the life of a celebrity, in which people begged for photos and autographs and the media were almost everywhere, but most of it was out of adoration. Besides, Danny would have been lying if he'd said he didn't enjoy attention.

It was like a dream. Everyone knew his name, and it seemed that everyone at Casper High — and then some — wanted to be his friend. Danny was usually very nice about it, but no one could replace Sam and Tucker. (This, he knew from experience.) Of course, Sam wasn't even a "friend" anymore, but his girlfriend, and Tucker was generally busy with mayoral duties. That didn't keep the three of them from spending late nights with pizza and movies in Tuck's office, though.

Best of all, people stopped hunting Danny altogether, which was a more than welcome departure from his pre-asteroid life. His parents still loved him despite his being a ghost, and even Valerie seemed to forgive him. Danny hadn't _really_ spoken to Valerie, but she'd given him a friendly smile across the room a few times, and they'd say hi to each other every now and then.

Life still wasn't without its problems, though. Danny's vision seemed to progressively blur more and more as time passed. A fog would creep around the edges of his sight, moving inward until everything was covered in a veil of white mist. Sometimes, the fog was accompanied by darkness — which usually meant that Danny was about to faint. Over the course of a month, he'd blacked out about three or four times, but always recovered. When he went to the doctor, the diagnosis was that there was nothing wrong with him. His parents didn't find anything wrong with him, either; his ectoplasmic energy levels were all stable, and he seemed as healthy as a ghost could be.

The black-outs were few, but they didn't go away, even three months after they began.

One day, after a particularly nasty black-out, Danny decided that he really needed to go on a walk or a fly or something. Fainting was stressful, especially because he didn't know _why_ he was fainting, and he had to unwind. Deciding that going outside — with the media and the fans — wasn't the best idea, he decided that he'd go for a quick fly in the Ghost Zone. He hadn't been there in a long while, and the new Portal had been up for less than a week. He thought that maybe he could go to the Land of the Far Frozen and unwind there. Maybe they'd even know what was wrong with him.

Danny descended the stairs to the lab and headed toward the Portal, opening it. He hadn't seen that vortex of swirling green in a long time; it felt the same way it felt to go home after a long trip. Without giving it a second thought, he went into his ghost form and plunged inside.

It was exactly as he remembered it: all green, with purple doors of every shape and size. He took off as fast as he could, enjoying the familiarity of the Ghost Zone and of the freedom of speeding through that open space.

Something felt different, though. Wrong. Danny wasn't sure why he felt the way he did; it was as if something was gently pricking at his mind, signaling that something was just _off. _Danny wrote it off, attributing it to not seeing the Ghost Zone for so long, but the feeling only increased as he flew. What had begun as something feeling slightly amiss had risen into a crescendo of alarm, screaming that something was horribly _wrong_, even though Danny didn't know what that was.

And then the fog came, as it had always come: it crept through the edges of his vision, obscuring it more with every inch he flew forward. Danny couldn't bring himself to stop flying, though; the fog was growing thicker than it ever had before, growing until opaque whiteness surrounded him. Panicked, Danny tried to fly in every direction he could, feeling that, _somehow_, he could get out of this.

The blackness was approaching.

"No, no, no…" he said to himself, feeling desperation and fear in his chest and his throat. "_Not here_…"

The darkness swallowed him slowly, as it always had — but this was a different darkness than before. In it, Danny felt numbness, as opposed to the strange, dreamlike self-awareness he felt when he blacked out. Normally, when he blacked out, he became vaguely aware of his own body — with the strange sensation of cold metal around his wrists, ankles, and neck, and it became difficult to breathe. In _this_ darkness, his senses faded into nothing at all.

He could see the stars, though. They appeared gradually, but quickly, until the darkness became lit with the brilliance of billions of stars. He looked around, only to find himself surrounded by them; he was in space. He smiled, or thought that he did, at the sight. His awe was short-lived for, in the midst of galaxies and constellations, a pair of eyes — red, like twin, ancient suns — opened.

"Why couldn't you just enjoy your dream?" a familiar voice asked. "It was such a nice dream, and so very _long_ and _real_." A pause. "But you had to fight, had to try to regain consciousness, had to push the boundaries of my _magnum opus_ of sleep, and this is where you are now. The boundary of your dream."

Danny found himself able to speak, though he wasn't sure how. He felt like pure air, incapable of doing anything but floating. "Dream?"

"Yes, a dream," Nocturne said. "The past few months of your life have been a dream, and nothing more. Consider it revenge, though a very kind one. I could have made your dream into a nightmare. Maybe it will be one, now that you've decided to leave the safety of your dream. After all, the Dreamworld can be a very frightening, wild place, made of the fragments of innumerable dreams and nightmares — a place you'll be wandering now that this dream is over.

Don't worry about your body. You won't be able to regain consciousness; it's tried so hard to wake already, and has still fallen back into sleep. You really shouldn't have left this place, you know. You're on your own now. Though it _does_ serve you right."

"No,_ don't_…"

"_Sweet dreams._"


End file.
